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Description: Simple or dichotomicously branched (occasionally
ramifies , producing a few basal shoots) with short dense spines.
Stem: Symmetrically globose at first, later cylindric, with a
depressed apex that appears completely white. 50 - 200 mm high and 50 -
80 mm in diameter, dull green and may, with age, become suberized at its
base.
Tubercule: Short cylindric/conical firm, 6 - 7 mm long and 2 mm
wide, arranged in numerous, very close-set spirals. The Axil is naked or
with a little bit wool and bristles.
Roots: Fibrous.
Radial spine: 20 - 30, short, 1 - 3 mm long, somewhat
horizontal radiating and arranged laterally on each side of the
tubercle, white.
Central spine: 0-1 or usually 2 (but some plant have 4),
divergent, one pointing upwards and often longer (up to 5 mm
long), the other turned backward, 1-3 mm long, awl-shaped, straight,
smooth, thicker at base, they are both brownish with a darker tip.
Flower: Small, funnelform, 10 - 12 mm long and in diameter,
purplish pink with darker midstripe. The perianth-segments are
narrow-oblong, with an ovate acute tip; the style is longer than the
filaments, pinkish; the stigma-lobes are 3, obtuse.
Fruit: Attractively deep dull pinkish-red coloured .Club-shaped,
10 - 15 mm long and 2 - 3 mm wide. Ripens 7 months after flowering.
Selfsterile.
Seed: Brown, club-shaped, 1 mm long and 0,8 mm wide. Hilum small
and subbasal.
purplish pink
NOTE: There are actually in
cultivation several forms of this controversial species.
The one labelled M. pseudoperbella (=
Mammillaria perbella lanata?) have usually carmine pink flowers
with darker midstripe usually in several complete rings in April-may,
with 20-30 setaceous radial spines and abundant axillary wool, while the
one identified as M. perbella
have sparse purplish pink flowers opening most of the
summer with fewer stouter and shorter radial spines. But this division
is arbitrary and it is almost impossible to discern the two plant
and the many intermediate forms .
Cultivation:
This plant is easy to cultivate but very slow growing. Cultivate it in a
well
drained and
mineral substratum.
Water regularly, avoid
the use of
peat or other
humus sources in the
potting mixture. It need full sun, so it keep a compact and flat
shape. It does not tolerate intense cold, but tolerates
some cold if kept dry. Frequent transplantations of the young plants
protect the lower part of the stem from the lignification, to
which the plant has a tendency.
Reproduction: It is propagated by seed.
Sometimes old plants divide at their apex, ramifying dichotomously - to
form two or more distinct joints - but the removal of one of these
joints may prove fatal to the plant.
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